


Purple Rain

by CannedTins



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 2018), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Metaphors, Past Child Abuse, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 23:53:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19452088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CannedTins/pseuds/CannedTins
Summary: The prompt was "This is for your own good."Featuring Jim Starling as a child.___The flowers were purple.Jim laid down on the grass, watching the flowers closely, their fragile petals swaying softly in the wind. A wonderful shade of purple, they were---Mama called them violets.Violets were her favorite.





	Purple Rain

**Author's Note:**

> There is child abuse in this story, please tread carefully.  
> This goes off my backstory I created for Jim Starling and probably isn't canon.

The flowers were purple.

Jim laid down on the grass, watching the flowers closely, their fragile petals swaying softly in the wind. A wonderful shade of purple, they were---Mama called them violets.

Violets were her favorite.

A bee hovered above the violets, yellow and black clashing against the purple backdrop as it nuzzled its head under the flower’s center, digging in for sweet pollen. Jim watched the bee hop across each flower, supplying itself with pollen---he thought about Mama again, how she would pick out each fruit and vegetable at the grocery store, Jim in the seat of the shopping cart. Papa would be presumably busy elsewhere.

Jim liked the violets. They reminded him of Mama.

What reminded him of Papa?

Bees had stingers, they buzzed and stung when they got mad. Papa did that, too. 

Jim remembered yesterday. He’d gotten in trouble at school. A classmate called him a bad word. He didn’t remember what the bad word was, but he knew it would hurt his feelings and he didn’t like it. So he fought back with another bad word he knew from Papa’s movies, and he lifted up a crayon and jabbed it into the classmate’s eye. Screaming, crying followed, the teacher yelling, “No!”.

He was sent to the principal’s office. 

The crayon was purple.

Mama drove him home, worried about him and his reputation at school, and worried about how her husband would think of all this. She held his hand as they walked home, opening the door after unlocking, waiting to see if Papa was there.

Jim could smell the smoke---that meant Papa was home. He would be very angry if he knew what he did at school, with the crayon. Principal’s office. Jim already cowered underneath Mama’s touch, hiding behind her legs. He’d always been small for his age, so hiding behind the legs was easy for him to do.

“Jimmy,” Mama cooed, “Please go to your room. I can talk to your father about this.”

Violets were purple and sweet and calming like Mama. Bees were black and yellow, loud and stinging like Papa. Bees gave honey, though. Papa didn’t.

Jim stayed in his bed underneath the covers, swallowing down his fears as he thought again about the school incident with the bad word and the crayon. Footsteps coming upstairs, voices too. Jim gripped the blanket tighter towards his body.

Jim returned to today, hearing the bee’s buzzing amidst the violets. Papa argued with her a lot. Buzzing and buzzing on, but he never stung her. 

But with Jim?

He didn’t want to go back  _ there _ , to remember the smoke, the door opening and the fear creeping up his spine as Papa heard about what he’d done at school. Nonetheless his mind did go back, again to yesterday after school when Mama had explained everything. Of course Papa got angry and Mama couldn’t do anything, she never really could.

“Jim,” he heard that low voice coming from above him, “Jim, come out of there.”

So he did.

Papa sat at the foot of the bed and faced Jim, pulling down the blanket, “What did you do? At school?”

Jim looked away. Papa grabbed his beak towards him.

“Tell me what you did, Jimmy.”

Mama told him, didn’t he? Why ask Jim? He didn’t know.

He didn’t want to say.

Purple.

Papa grabbed him from the bed and set him down on the ground with a thud, kneeling down to watch his face, he repeated, “What did you  _ do _ ?”

Jim felt tears well up from his eyes. It hurt, that he was practically slammed down on the floor---carpeted or not. It hurt with the face Papa made as he looked directly at him. The smoke hurt, too. Mama only watched from the doorway.

The crayon.

“I--I did something bad at school,” Jim admitted, looking away from Papa again.

“Yes, you did. And should you?”

Jim shook his head. Papa squeezed his shoulder so hard he cried out, and the smoke increased.

“No. You should  _ never _ ,” Papa growled, “You’re an actor. You have a reputation to uphold!”

“Basil,” Mama exclaimed, “He’s just a child.”

“No child of mine should be a violent thug. Only in movies, do you hear that, Jimmy?”

Jim nodded.

Papa slapped him across the cheek, repeating, “I said. Do you  _ hear _ that?”

The bee buzzed.

“Y-yes, sir.”

Papa took out his smoke stick and exhaled, “Do you ever listen to me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No!” Papa slapped him again, “You  _ never _ listen! Not when I’m directing you, not when I tell you to behave outside, not even when I tell you to look at me.”

The bee stung.

“Sorry,” Jim looked down, “I’m sorry.”

Papa was having none of that. He smacked Jim against the mattress, watching him cry, ignoring Mama’s pleas to stop. He turned Jim’s head around to face him and sucked on his smoke stick, “You better listen next time, Jimmy.”

Today. The violets. The bee.

Jim was at least happy he was allowed in the backyard where he could escape Papa’s stinging for once. Mama always kept a close watch, always made sure her Jimmy was safe and not in any danger. Mama loved him, perhaps too much. Violets couldn’t hurt anybody.

Bees could. Bees stung and buzzed. Their stings hurt. 

But they didn’t last long. Jim remembered the last time he’d been stung, crying to Mama, hugging her and sniffling, Mama putting medicine on the sting and placing a bandage over it. Within a few days the pain was totally gone, you couldn’t even notice he’d been stung at all.

Papa stung differently. He hit Jim, he knocked him unconscious, said bad words to him,  _ sometimes _ was nice to him but the next day would turn and smack him upside the head again, all while Mama watched. He knew the bruises he got, and they wouldn’t disappear in a few days like bee stings did.

Bruises were purple.

Jim didn’t like bruises. Mama let him wear long sleeves and hats and anything else to hide the signs. Sometimes he’d have to go to the hospital. The doctors either thought he was very clumsy, or they knew something else was going on but never said anything because Papa would sue them.

Why did bruises have to be the same color as violets?

Sometimes, it wouldn’t just be bruises. Papa stung in other ways, too. The smoke. Smoke sticks.

He knew the smell, knew what they looked like and the effect they had on Papa, he knew the trails of ash they left in their midst and the gross, bitter smell they held which would make him gag. Papa knew this, too. He lit the smoke sticks on fire and they burned with each breath he took in, the little red glow at the end that scared Jim.

Hits left purple bruises and smoke sticks left  _ red _ marks. Burning red marks that hurt and smelled terrible. Papa only did this whenever Mama wasn’t around. It was a way to punish him, but a way that Papa couldn’t risk having her to watch.

Jim cried and asked why, he didn’t have to explain what, but wanted to ask,  _ why _ ? Did Papa love him or not? Did Papa care as much as Mama did? Then, why the hurt?

“This is for your own good,” Papa said. He buzzed. The bee.

He wore black and yellow.

What good? What good is it to hurt Jim? Mama didn’t like it and took him to the hospital and argued with Papa about it, so Jim didn’t  _ understand _ what was good about it. He was scared.

Jim would hug Mama, who would return it tenderly but tightly, telling him how much she loved him and how he was the entire world to her. He tried to explain Papa’s actions, tried to lessen the hurt and think about other things. She was soft and gentle. The violet.

She wore purple.

Another thing about Mama. Her hair was red. Very red. Jim thought it was the most beautiful hair he’d ever seen and hoped he’d have hair like that when he grew up. The hair  _ almost _ reminded him of the glowing smoke sticks and red marks, but the hair didn’t hurt. It was soft and brilliant and comforting. Papa didn’t have red hair.

Flowers could be red, too.

The bee buzzed away and disappeared into the distance, leaving the violets emptied of their pollen. Jim heard Mama call for him, dinner time. Papa wasn’t home yet. Jim could hear the smell of cooking meat instead of bitter smoke and welcomed it, running back inside the house, leaving the violets in their dust. 

For once he hoped Papa wouldn’t come home. The bee didn’t have to return to sting him again.

  
  
  
  



End file.
